Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Gifts and Thrifts

After the packages are taped, labeled, and mailed to Kentucky, after the fruit cake is stirred, baked, and soused, after the cards are written and stamped...then it's time to buy myself a little thing or two.

My friend from Memphis, who is not exactly Jewish, buys herself eight gifts for Hanukkah.  Her tradition is one I fully embrace, so today I had myself a merry little Christmas by spending the afternoon consignment-store shopping in The Haight.
 
I was outed as a second-hand shopper at a dinner party a couple of years ago.  Someone tall and blonde complimented me on the basic black I was wearing and my husband volunteered, with obvious pride, that I had nabbed it at The Goodwill for almost nothing.  As I struggled to make eye contact with him he continued to explain that I shopped at thrift stores all the time. 
I avoid bedding, tooth brushes, and shoes, but some of my best finds have indeed come from second-hand shops.  Sue's Boutique in Clinton has racks exploding with delectable Sylvie-sized dresses. They're for the girly-girl, sometimes ruffled and smocked, and always freshly washed and ironed right in the back room. Sue will occasionally divulge the source of her bounty, so I know that Silas's overalls were handed down by Ethan and Sylvie's puffy white sweater was recently outgrown by Olivia.

Add San Francisco's zest for self-expression to the city's zeal for recycling and you've got some of the best foraging in the universe. Today at the Haight Goodwill, an invigorating 40-minute hike from my house, I completed retail therapy with a tarnished but possibly useful tea canister for $1.99; I bypassed a stack of 20 dessert dishes made festive by a metallic band of silver and slate, but I was sorely tempted.   

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Homes...for the Holidays

I had one real meltdown during the final sweep of my parents’ house before it was sold. That was when I noticed a small, white-painted hanger embedded above the kitchen door.  This was where Dad hung the mistletoe at Christmas.

If the holidays don’t give you the homing instinct, nothing will. It’s a season to drop the defenses and be shamelessly drawn to the porches, kitchens, hallways, scents, tastes, and faces we’ve loved and left.

In our family, homes carry their own holiday traditions, each so brined with meaning that the memories refuse to move on, even when we do.

Accordingly, I can’t drive by 311 West Clay without thinking we could be met at the door by a blast of warm air and the scent of my grandmother’s cloverleaf rolls. A Thanksgiving there meant asparagus and oyster dressing alongside cranberry sauce in the improbable form of a shimmering ruby gel.  In my grainy, hand-held memory there's my mother unloading pumpkin pies she's brought, spooning coffee into the percolator, wiping sudsy hands upon her apron. 

So last week when I was looking for a jar of mincemeat at the San Francisco Safeway I was really trying to find the Thanksgiving of my childhood. Someone should tell you when it's about to be left behind: the last time you'll gather in a certain room for sweet potato casserole, or sit around the table with every chair full. This announcement could begin with the sharp chime of a spoon against the rim of a water glass and the words, "Look around you. Freeze-frame this moment because years later you'll wonder when, exactly, it came to an end."

Dad’s mistletoe was ribboned high in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room of the house where I grew up, and beneath it passed the strawberry jam,  homemade bread, the grapefruit halves with maraschino cherries, the platters of scrambled eggs and Harper’s Ham that composed our Christmas morning breakfast for family and friends.

The actors have changed now, but the setting is still intact. The homes of our holidays can be rented, leased, sold, foreclosed, or renovated beyond recognition, but as long as they stand, time is contained. They give us a place to store the past.








 

Monday, November 22, 2010

Sculptural Forms


Five hours south through the Central Valley and we're approaching Los Angeles for a weekend catch-up with Ira's son, who's in school there. Traffic in this sprawling city lives up to its reputation; blocky Land Rovers and sleek, bullet-shaped Porsches dart in and out of lanes and swallow up parking and no-parking spaces. Where the U-Turn is San Francisco's signature move, the "Left on Red" belongs to LA. Hesitate a beat too long and you'll be honked at, mouthed at, pursued and punished in a manner that far outranks the crime.

Walking's not an option in Los Angeles so we drive everywhere, mostly in search of interesting ethnic food. Korea Town provides a nothing-like-Nicky's barbecue, mounds of way too much red meat, lightly grilled, and arranged in diagonals with spicy kimchi on the side. At a bakery called "Toast" we munch crispy triangular quesadillas stuffed with avocado, and in Little Armenia we try smoked eggplant and green-onion salad, defined and brightened by parsley and lemon juice, and by their melodic names: baba ghanoush and fattouch.

 
Francisco Zuniga
George Rickey
   









As a counterpoint to street madness we walk through the Murphy Sculpture Garden on UCLA's campus. It's incredibly quiet.  A relief sculpture by Pietro Consagra invites us to run our fingers over its shallow recesses and topographic contours. George Rickey's kinetic sculpture, similar to one on the University of Kentucky campus, shimmers in the breeze above an earth-bound bronze nude by Francisco Zuniga. These two figures seem to symbolize a human paradox: on one hand we reach for freedom. On the other, we yearn for all that binds us to earth and place.

Late Sunday night as we're traveling back to San Francisco, four lanes of surging traffic slow to a creep and we watch the green digits of the dashboard clock as an hour crawls by.  Braced for a scene of carnage, we nose our little Subaru closer and closer to orange cones and cruisers. Finally a dozen pulsing blue lights telegraph the facts: an overloaded hay transport has flipped, scattering hundreds of golden bales in their own random, sculptural forms across the median, the exit ramp, the shoulder, and four broad lanes of highway.









Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Fuyu

It's always been my opinion that the persimmon didn't have much going for it. And then I met a Fuyu at the Richmond Market down on Geary.

The Fuyu and the Pomegranate
The Fuyu is a cousin of the Hachiya persimmon, the astringent variety that grows in Kentucky back yards and tastes like you've bitten into a Brillo Pad. The Fuyu and Hachiya are roughly the same size and the same glorious muted sunshine color. But there the resemblance ends.  The Fuyu is firm, slices like an apple, and is light, crisp, and sweet.

Fuyus are great in salads, and when combined with spring mix and a handful of jewel-like pomegranate seeds, you can almost forget who their relatives are.

Friday, November 5, 2010

The Orange Crush


A month ago I was unacquainted with The Beard, and I thought The Machine was kept in the basement.  But that didn't stop us from joining in the tickertape celebration of the Giants' first World Series win since the 50s.

Ira and I sprinted up the hill and caught the Number Five as soon as we could hop out of bed and get dressed.  Our first taste of Orange Crush was when we climbed on the bus...we got the last two seats, even though 21st Avenue is near the beginning of the route. 

In another stroke of luck we got the last two chairs in the balcony level of Boudin's Bakery. Located at the intersection of Montgomery and Market, our seats were level with the pigeon perch and perfect for hanging out and snapping pictures. 

Along with everyone else we cheered, sipped cafe au laits, and tore into loaves of sourdough while the crowd below us grew.



Monday, November 1, 2010

Voices

Sitting behind two Mandarin-speakers on the bus, I'm transfixed. They are chatting softly, and their language has a sound I don't hear often, a swish-swish sound--as graceful as French. It seems appropriate that Mandarin is the Chinese language of diplomacy--it has a certain dignity and subtlety.

Most of our Chinese neighbors speak Cantonese, the primary language of Hong Kong, the jumping-off place en route to San Francisco. In its native form it's highly tonal, easy to identify and wildly interesting to my Western ear.

Voices/ink&wc on silk
Our friend Claudia speaks German-accented English. I can imagine her as a child, conjugating verbs at the knee of her linguist father. Claudia's husband John speaks Russian-accented English, and lapses into Russian when he can't find the right English expression.

Our contractor's booming voice is Irish. "Ay! She's a fine hound," he says to Cleo as he enters the front door. It's the exuberant sound of John Campbell's Pub on St. Pat's Day, rollicking and rough.

John's workmen all speak Spanish. They communicate in smiles and broken English, and I've tried to bridge the gap with what little Spanish I've picked up along the way. They know how to acknowledge my questions and thanks, and I know how to express some approximation of, "please don't hurt yourself doing that."

With everyone speaking his own brand of English, it's a maze of accents. If the conversation stalls, someone in the crowd jumps in to fill in the blanks. Everyone uses certain untranslatable American words. Background noise--a conversation in Cantonese-- suddenly takes shape when the term "traffic school" leaps out of the verbal maze.

Even with its wealth of conversational color, we don't hear much African-American speech in San Francisco, and I miss that. Walking in sunshine on lower Fillmore--the jazz district--I hear the lively, syncopated cadences that were a part of my childhood. These voices wrap around me like a well-worn shawl.


Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Between Sets
It's never too late to have a happy childhood, or in my case, adolescence. The first weekend in October proves that every year.  At the crack of dawn on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we walk up the hill to Fulton Avenue, cross into Golden Gate Park, and stake out our two square meters of Speedway Meadow. Thus begins San Francisco's biggest annual music fest: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.

First financed in 2001 by venture capitalist Warren Hellman, attendance during the 2009 weekend of HSB was estimated by Rolling Stone Magazine at 800,000.

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are regulars, like T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello. Emmy Lou Harris is practically the patron saint of HSB.

This year's best musical discovery: The Secret Sisters, from Mussel Shoals, Alabama. Best moment of nostalgia? When Joan Baez sang "Long Black Veil" as the fog rolled in.

Joan Baez at the Banjo Stage


Along with sets and stage visits, we have a basket with grapes, cheese, hummus, and a couple of bargain wines. The people-watching is world class. It's a three-day Derby infield minus the horses.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Crazed

Photo by Barbara Talan


In parched October I walked
past the grain bin
toward the grassy basin of the pond.
No mirror of sky there,
Instead, a Chickasaw pattern of cracks each
deep enough to hold five fingers, splayed.
I knelt and touched
searching for the bones of the earth.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Tomato Caviar and Other Oddities

Today a car swung into the parking lot of Roberts Crop Insurance, narrowly missing my dog and me. The woman driving it leaned to the passenger side window and shouted, "Is that Cleo??" I looked down just to be sure. Yes, it was Cleo, attached to her leash. We'd just been for a run in the flat grassy lot that separates Dr. Smith's office from the back yards of houses on Moss Drive. The woman sounded relieved. "I saw her running through the yards and I thought she'd gotten loose, so I hopped in my car to try to catch her."

Catching a whippet is a neat trick, and I found Ms. Hendren's  train of thought equally elusive. "I sometimes sit with the Mennonite woman who sells tomatoes," she explained. A man comes there with Cleo." I thanked her and felt the heat-dulled wheels turning in my head to make sense of it all. She had met Cleo and Ira on one of their tomato-walks to the Mennonite produce stand.

It is almost impossible to find a good tomato in San Francisco. Overpriced heirlooms at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market look the part, but still don't have the juicy, acid-ey flavor of a hot Big Boy straight out of a Kentucky garden.  So when we are in Kentucky we have tomatoes with coffee at breakfast, layer tomato with mozzarella for sandwiches at noon, and slurp up fresh-tomato pasta at night. We furtively stand at the kitchen sink and let the seedy juice trickle down our chins. We top tomato wedges with cold cottage cheese and cucumber for a cool-off snack on the side porch in mid-afternoon, and sometimes tomatoes disappear from the kitchen counter between midnight and 8 am.

A couple of days ago we found the ultimate fresh-tomato treat in John Ross' home made tomato ketchup. This glittering caviar, perfected by John's Uncle Bill, came from a family recipe.  It takes an entire day to cook, beginning with twenty fresh tomatoes, pickling spice, and a bushel of sugar. By sunset the tomatoes have become a sweet treasure to be savored on crackers with cheese, heaped on a burger and bun, or licked straight from the spoon.  When Uncle Bill died in the spring, his recipe attained mythic status.

Today tomatoes have almost rescued a whippet, have put Uncle Bill on the culinary walk of fame, and have outed my husband, making him famous for being the one and only person in town sufficiently heroic to brave the heat on his tomato quest.

The kharmic cycle was complete when, late this afternoon, I was again stopped in my tracks.  Katie Beck was hurrying in the door of Greg's Market, but took a minute to say hi. I already knew what her first words would be.

"I saw Ira this morning," she said. "He was at the Mennonites' buying tomatoes."

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Goodnight, John Boy

I just checked on Silas.  He's sleeping in what we call the Cinderella Room, a space adjacent to the upstairs sleeping porch, so small it barely holds a twin bed.  Silas checked all the options, then picked his own bed.

It's nearly midnight after a drive from Lexington, but we made time to read the Davy Crockett book that has my brother's name printed in it, and then double-checked the locations of the other upstairs tenants:  Ira and I will be across the hall (follow the magic rugs) and Phil will be in the corner room with its view of Clinton's courthouse cupola.

It was in 1993, seventeen years ago, that my brother and I started working on this house, reclaiming it from the wrecking ball with a promise to each other that we would make it into a summer gathering place for the whole clan.  It's almost impossible to get everyone here at the same time.  Kent, Minda, and Sylvie are home in Winchester now but will drive down in a few days to join Silas; Matt will drive down on the eve of the 17th;  Chris and Ben Jewell couldn't make it this summer-- Chris just started a new job at U of VA and Ben is doing a summer internship in Panama.

But Emma and Mason traveled across three states with their Dad, taking turns talking with him while he did all the driving.  And Silas is staying alone with us for the first time ever, exploring the front stairs, back stairs, and incredible attic of the Emma House.  In a few minutes I'll check on him again.  And then maybe just one more time.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

House of Falling Plaster

On the way to Kentucky I picked up fifteen pairs of corncob holders, in transparent jewel-tones of blue, green, yellow, and red. This little acquisition was one small part of a larger vision: family time, gourmet meals, a Traditional Home cover story of perfect order.

Friday was the big night, with real china on the table, corn on the cob simmering, and tomatoes and cucumbers sliced and chilling..
Bechamel sauce was made,  the Pyron's shitaakes were sizzling, and squash and zucchini cubes were checker-boarded across the counter. The lasagna pan was lightly buttered; the ice water pitcher was out.  And it was six p.m. and Mason and Phil and the rest of the lasagna ingredients were nowhere to be found.

As a diversion, the rain came, first one in the entire parched July, and with it went a stampede to the front porch. Children of all ages ran toward the thunderheads, ozone scent, and much-needed shower bath.  A wet dish towel --once  white-- was trampled on the kitchen floor. The recycling container tipped over and its contents fanned out exhibition-style.  The oven beeped alarmingly that it was time to cook.

Almost instantly the sit-down dinner was transposed to snacks on the front porch. Silas and Sylvie were allowed to eat whatever they wanted. Somebody found the corkscrew. Zucchini was shoved aside to make room for slicing cheese and heaping crackers in a bowl.

Afterwards, Matt sat at the empty dining table and read Monster Museum to Silas. It was a lovely night reclaimed.  Silas listened attentively. Matt read with great expression.  As the story ended, Matt's full glass of red wine tipped and rolled. Red stuff spread across the table cloth and dripped slowly on to the carpet.

The next day Kent removed the shower door from the main bathroom to replace it with a new one from Lowes which measured as a fit, but didn't quite. An extracted shower door, drill, and pry bar stood patiently waiting for me to try the dinner a second night. As I held Sylvie and waited for the pasta to bake, she wet me through her diaper with such enthusiasm that it trickled down my leg and into my shoe. I fanned myself dry, changed to my flip flops, and the dinner  came off as planned.

That night there were  ten of us in the house. All bedrooms, including the Room of Falling Plaster, were full. I took a look around, considering all angles that the Traditional Home staff might want to photograph. The recycle bin was full, but upright.  The upstairs tub was dripping but operational.  The side porch swing, which had fallen Saturday when three of us tried to sit on it,  was resting comfortably in the grass. Laundry was drying on the porch rack, and on the porch rail, and on the porch floor. The dishwasher needed to be emptied.  Everything was just about perfect.

Photo clockwise: Phil, Mason, Minda, Sylvie, Kent, Matt, Em, Liz. Silas is under the table and the photo was taken by Ira.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Linked Within

This summer we drove from San Francisco to Kentucky, the first time in five years that we didn't hop a flight.  It took four days, figuring in the stone monoliths of southern Utah that summoned us and a 'check engine'  light that detoured us in Kansas. Our latitude stayed roughly the same, but changes in attitude accompanied all the landscapes that blurred past us as we drove.

The California hills that took us toward Nevada were Edward Weston's reclining brown nudes, hips and shoulders making an earth song to the sky. Utah's Salt Lake, from our perspective, was a white desert, under a sky so hot it caused road mirages to distract us for miles.  Cars levitated in the shimmering air, not coming down to earth until we were close enough to see their license plates.

In Missouri, the hills assumed a new familiarity.  Outside St. Louis green rows of corn took over, and linked us with every field of childhood.  Whoever coined the phrase, "a sight for sore eyes," understood the healing that occurs when you finally see something, or someone, that has been absent too long.  It's a bath of epsom salts, a gentle flushing out of foreign matter.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Top Ten Lessons from a Clean House

Everyone should move out of their house once a year and rent to strangers, if only to learn these lessons:

(1) Shoulder pads won't come back in style.
(2) There is a reason all those floral dresses are at the consignment shop.
(3)  In an entire lifetime you cannot use more than one bottle of liquid smoke.
(4) Empty storage containers do not fit in the trash can.
(5) Only a professional can figure out how to clean what's lodged in the refrigerator seal.
(6) Eraser pads can only do so much.
(7) A major appliance will bite the dust when you're almost finished.
(8)  Each room you clean makes the others look worse.
(9) The compost bin isn't something you want to leave for the summer renters.
(10) No matter how neatly you pack, your gear-to-go will still look like the Clampett's in the end.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Weigh Day, Weigh Day

Every couple of months we have to return to the scales, take a deep breath, look down, and get real.  It's time to cut back the two treats we love most in San Francisco: crusty artisan bread and Napa Valley wine.  Besides the scales, there are other reminders. Like the full length mirrors in yoga class, or the jeans that, after all this time, must have been dried too hot.  

Our neighborhood is full of ethnic and eclectic treats. John Campbell's Irish Bakery has hot cross buns during Lent, and Irish brown bread and blueberry scones all year round.  Across the street is the Russian Bakery, with huge anise-flavored cookies and mounded meringues in pastel colors, so large they look like a pink, yellow, and white mountain range in the window.  The folded meat pies are hamburger-onion delicious in the same way as White Castles. Enjoy now, be sorry later.

There's Starbuck's banana bread, and Pete's coffee with biscotto for the dipping.  Royal Ground boasts a glass case with full-blown desserts: chocolate cheesecake, red velvet layers, and pumpkin pie with a whipped cream option. The only guilt-free treat is at Java Beach, an internet coffee-shop where Judah St. meets the sea.  Their grainy bran muffins are the size of a cantaloupe and the perfect accompaniment is a steaming cup of chai. Calories, yes. But to deserve this snack you must hike down through the park to 49th Avenue,  along Speedway Meadow, past the buffalo range,  Spreckles Lake, and the Angler's Lodge.  Then skirt the ocean for a couple of blocks to the outdoor tables at Java Beach.  You'll burn off the calories on the walk back home. Or at least that's what you say.
____________
photo: panini and tomato bisque soup from a restaurant in the Marina

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Mixed Metaphors

With houseguests we travel the city, coast, and outlying areas as if we're seeing San Francisco for the first time, and that's how it feels.  Not long ago I toured Alcatraz with Mason. As we followed a circular path to the top of the rock, I remembered Mont-Saint-Michel  in Normandy--its wind-battered arches and  sharply ascending pathways.

Any joy I felt on this small island was erased at the sight of the cell blocks, two tiers of cages hardly large enough to hold the regulation cot, toilet, and bowl-sized sink.

The next day's journey was a hike through Muir Woods. If the cell blocks of Alcatraz suggested ultimate confinement, then this grand canyon of sequoias stood for unbridled freedom.  At every side, lush ferns and mosses  presided over rocky creeks.  Above us, arms of the sequoias soared to touch a white-paper sky, barely acknowledging that they, like us, were rooted in the soil.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Kohala Photo Ops

The upper point of the Big Island is called Kohala. It's a region we haven't seen at all, so on this last day in Hawai'i, we once again lace on the hiking sandals and head north.  I've adjusted to the fact that The Big Island isn't all that big; the trip will take a few hours but not the entire day.

Kohala is the oldest part of the island, and upturned a'a has changed into something resembling soil.  The ocean is to our left and washboard roads lead to the water. Finally the highway  dead-ends at a small settlement called Hawi.  There's an ice cream shop and a dozen or so Galleries, or upscale muu muu shops. We have an expensive single dip of coffee ice cream with chocolate chips, sit in the shade and get one of the locals to snap our photo. 

The road east from Hawi goes only one place, and that's to the Pululu overlook.  The guide book said for the best photos, take the trail.  There was no trail in sight, only many tourists who, like us, had inched their cars off the road for a better view. 






We shot way too many frames of this and even so didn't get a shot that does it justice. What's missing is a brooding sky to the east, a strong wind off the ocean, and the glaring face of the farmer whose fence row we were crowding. 

After a salad and more last minute shopping back in Hawi, we headed down the center of the region, traveling the length of a volcanic spine that must have been slightly to the windward side.  The hills were so lush we could have been in Ireland.


Everywhere

There are little altars, memorials, and offering bundles everywhere.  In the black a'a fields, white pebbles trace out a cross and a name.

Stones are aligned on an ancient heiau with such focus on balance and rhythm that they almost speak. I try to listen, but it is a lost language.

Past the coffee plantations, a tree is festooned with orchid leis, sparkles, and yellow hibiscus.  My eyes say, "It's a celebration," but my heart knows otherwise.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Birthday, Snorkel Day, Whale Day

We set the alarm this morning and rushed through breakfast buffet to make it to the snorkeling excursion on time. The boat was small and the two girls piloting it were college students. Maybe. But we hopped on anyway, all slicked down with 80 proof sunscreen and carrying the waterproof camera we got yesterday at Hilo Walmart.

Ira seemed tentative about the whole excursion.  I was most worried about cold water.  The Big Island Revealed says water temp in Hawai'i is consistent year-round, but it IS February.


We took the long route to Captain Cook Beach and saw a sea cave and some lava flows that can't be accessed except by boat. We learned once more about a'a and pahoehoe, the two types of lava. Then we each received a pair of flippers in our own size, along with a snorkeling mask and tube.  In time we got our gear on the right way and slid over the side for some serious snorkeling. The water was warm. We could see a large coral reef about 15 feet below us, and schools of Needle-Nose fish and orange Tang fish, no doubt named for the breakfast drink.  Periodically we all had to paddle around, cough, and clear the salt water out of our masks.

We each had a snack of Fritos and papaya while the girl-pilots dropped a hydrophone into the water so we could listen to the singing of the Humpback Whales.  Their calls echo, and are like a cross between mooing and howling.  Whales from each region have one common song and that song becomes more elaborate each time the whales return to their breeding ground.  According to the guides, the song of the whale is not just noise but indeed a melody, with a beginning, guitar break, and end.

Monday, February 15, 2010

A Day of the Unexpected

Today we drove through the saddle-shaped valley from Kona to Hilo on the other side of the island.  I was expecting it to be bumpy, long, and barren but most was red-ochre hills against the green-violet shapes of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.  We dodged potholes and wild turkeys for the first ten miles or so, but otherwise it wasn't bad at all.

Hilo was all bright sunlight, another thing we hadn't counted on, though there were puddles everywhere and evidence of bountiful rain in the lush vegitation.  The storefronts along Hilo Bay had a well-worn small town feel, as Ira said, "like tropical Scottsville in its heyday." More quality, for sure, than muu muu and shell stretch in Kona. We felt at home in Hilo (maybe because it was Phil and Chris's home for a few years), liked our lamb pita  at the Puka Puka, and really liked our Kosmic Cone dipped in chocolate.  (We also liked Banyan St., which is pretty hard to explain, except maybe as driving through a lot of old lady's legs.)

Puna is the volcanic triangle on the coast south of Hilo, described in Doughty's Big Island Tour Book as a real outlaw land, where people don't mind setting up housekeeping in the path of an active lava flow. We did see some evidence of that as we drove south from Hilo: there was a white clapboard island house with "Merry Christmas" spray painted in black across the front.  And as we neared the coast we saw a wild child --shirtless, shoeless, and with untamed island locks--running toward us in the road.  As we neared, he ducked into the most tall and dense vegetation I have ever seen.  There was no sign of an opening, but he knew where he was going.

We came upon a painted church  and wondered if this might indeed be the last sign of civilization we would encounter. (This is a topic for another day, but the painted churches in Hawai'i are pure magic. )We took photos, put a few dollars in the "Thank you" box, and moved on.  At this point we could hear the ocean.

Around the curve the narrow road was barricaded and then barricaded again.  There were signs(and more signs)  that told us not to drive our (rental) car over the heaping, loopy, jagged, sinister looking mounds of petrified black lava that had engulfed the road. OK, we were really thinking about putting it in gear and climbing over this hellish heap, but maybe we'll reconsider.

A quick left and we were on what (we thought) would be the totally wild and untamed Puna costal ride. Not quite what we had imagined....both more and less wild than we'd envisioned.  Straight ahead--total rain forest with trees bending to touch over the road, just flora on steroids, little shop of horrors, what next around the curve??

In answer to that....ocean meets rocky lava like you wouldn't believe.  There must be a name for this, mega-spumoni?? No, too many letters for Hawai'in, but the intersection of black stone and sea was quite an opera.

The biggest shock: here were a lot of ritzy houses tucked behind the ferns of Puna, probably owned by people who paid the guidebook man to throw us off the trail.   On the left, a hidden design by Frank Gehry?  Then a few miles on the right, a shack selling holistic medicines and that green leaf that is not fully legal in the other fourty-nine. And so forth, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Finally we headed back through Hilo, back through Banyan Street and the bay, and up toward Honoka'a, where it did finally rain.  In a few minutes the sky cleared and we had a lavender sunset all the way back to Kona, not too shabby a day.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

A Crackers and Cheese Day

Here we are on the Kona Coast and I have to admit it: the highlight of my day was when The University of Louisville Men's Basketball Team upset Syracuse. Beyond that, though, it was a laid-back day that included some early morning pool time  and then a walk through Kona's muu muu, shell necklace, and beef jerky district along the sea wall.

Between shops we did notice a few things that mentally, if not physically, took us off the strip: a young boy steering his board around the bay; graceful banyan trees and chattering mynah birds, and the first church of the island (1820s) where someone had obviously found sanctuary--he was stretched out and snoring loudly on the back pew.

Before leaving Kona and driving the six miles back to our hotel on Keauhou Bay we stopped at Safeway for bottle of wine and multiple varieties of cheese and crackers...otherwise known as dining in.

From our deck we could still see a few fish swimming in the still water of the tidal pools. And soon, just the sound of the waves.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Just Venting

Kilauea Caldera was a real showboat today, belching out snowy steam and so much sulphurious smoke that the pregnant, aged, or infirm were not allowed to play on the rim. After some thought we decided we didn't fit into any of those categories so we hung out around the Jaggar Museum and took photos with the rest of the kids.

Every museum has its hairball and the Jaggar Museum is no exception.  Enshrined in a glass case are the clothes Dr. Thomas Jaggar, volcanologist, was wearing when he first set foot into the red hot lava flow in the early 1900s. The shoes are warped and melted, his bush-style slacks are in charred fringes, and his small pick hammer is completely encased in the black stuff.  Apparently Dr. Jaggar was doing a close inspection of his special lava, perhaps deciding if it was (1) a'a, rough and porous lava or (2) pahoehoe, which is smooth and ropey. There are no actual photographs of Dr. Jaggar after the incident.

While on Hwy. 11 we stopped at Punalu'u beach, and experienced the black volcanic sand first-hand.

After leaving Caldera we drove a few miles toward Hilo, and discovered that we had been misled all these years.  At least in Hawaii, the grass really IS greener on the other side.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Lunch at the Hana Hou and Other Stories

In our quest to be non-touristos, we headed into Naalehu for some local food. Our tour book recommended Hana Hou, which was one of maybe two restaurants in Naalehu. Besides a turkey burger and Asian slaw, we got Garth Brooks, Chinese lanterns, ceramic red peppers nailed on the wall, a row of white dishrags hanging on a line stretched between back porch posts, and a really good Rocky Road Brownie, my favorite part.

Backing up just a bit, we spent this whole day driving a long loop from our hotel below Kona through coffee plantation country and down to South Point, the southernmost point of Hawaii and the USA.  To get there, we hung a right off the main road and traveled a bumpy 12 miles past scattered farm houses, wind turbines, and grazing cows.   When we arrived (the end of the road), here's what there was: a huge panorama of cerulean ocean on all sides; a dozen jeep-like cars parked in the dust; five or six macho-sized fishing rods wedged into lava rock ledge, their lines trailing out into the sea; and wow---right in front of us two black humpback whales, breaching, diving, slip-sliding all over the horizon. It was amazing.

Soooo-- after discovering the beautiful blue at South Point, we headed a little further out toward Naalehu for burgers and the Rocky Road Brownie. Which was, now that I think of it, my second-favorite part of the day.

Monday, January 25, 2010

And what she wore

It’s just a dark brown shawl, not that old, but when I wrap it about me I settle into history and become my great-great grandmother. 

The only full length photograph I have of Martha Elizabeth Johnson Spillman Watson is one composed in her middle-age. She’s standing on the steps of the tidy, white frame, gingerbread-trim house that is now the Hickman County Museum.

Nunny--as they called her-- endured the Civil War, a first husband who didn’t come home, a second marriage pierced by deaths of two small sons, and years of widowhood beginning in her forties.Yet on a snowy day during the Great Depression, she chose her attire, walked to her front steps, and regally posed for a picture postcard.

She still had her spirit. She cared what she wore.

Clothes delight me--for this reason and a hundred more. As a five-year-old I’d snuggle against my own grandmother and interrupt her stories to say, “and what she wore was...” I was the costume designer to her tales of young Tina and wild carpet rides . A few years older I scratched out pencil drawings--sophisticates in flaring shirtwaists, cinched belts, and sling-back heels.  I was a grown up woman with freedom to design and choose.

The only woman in my family to openly celebrate her wardrobe was my great Aunt Sadie, who fed my growing addiction. From the Hudson’s a few blocks from her Detroit balcony came a scarlet bathing suit edged with a running trim of tiny white balls, a Spanish skirt and peasant blouse, the cowboy boots I'd broadly hinted for.  She loved red and I'm sure that's what she was wearing in this photo as she sailed across Lake Michigan. But I remember her best--the age I am now--in a creamy white wool suit, beige stilettos, dark hair caught in a French roll.  Sadie understood understatement.

My first wearable design was a skirt stitched from one of my brother’s cloth diapers. It fit  like an bandage. More attempts would follow, with quiet encouragement and tutoring from Frances who lived up the hill, and unsupressed eye-rolling from Mom. In my teens I sewed sleeveless summer pants-dress that flared from the waist into rippling sail-like legs. The project worked, but my plan for a debut at church was blocked. “No,” my mother said. “No. Period.”

Taboos of the early sixties became the norm in no time. I wore gypsy pairings like a peacock's plume-- navy with avocado, purple paisley with ruffles, fringe and macrame all floating on a bare and over-tanned midriff.  I sailed toward college in a sea of beaded bracelets, frayed jeans, and undulating tie dyes.  My hair grew past my shoulders, fragile and stick straight, but still I ironed it. Near high school graduation my friend Cherry pierced my ears against an ice cube and I wore delicate silver hoops in full view of my father, knowing it would be far easier to receive forgiveness than permission.

As a college student and young wife my standards matured. Instead of memorizing French (a move I would regret) I once again took up sewing. In September I  sashayed to class in orange: flared slacks and a floor-length vest of double-knit, worn over a matching Cossack shirt. In January, The French Lieutenant’s Woman billowed forth in an indigo cape, down 3rd Street in Louisville and across campus for classes in design. A happy time, me and my creations.

After college, a turning point. Newly degreed, we U-hauled  to a town perfect for raising two sons, perfect for Garden Club, Country Club. Perfect for wealthy farmers' wives feasting on barbecue.  Perfect for library cards and church choir. A tacit dress code reigned for young wives, and I complied with a silent submission reserved for Southern girls. I stirred up corn pudding, dopped off Matt and Kent at school,  accepted a part-time writing job, endured.

Deliverance came in the form of a neighbor. Mary Parker –older than my mother–-served me tea and spoke of Europe. She showed me hidden seams of her Chanel-style coat, read with me the silky Braille of an oriental rug, the draping hand of a length of foulard, the hand-tied fagoting of a linen napkin.  Her kitchen curtains were a tailor’s dream--stripes joined invisibly, windowpane plaids in architectural alignment. And all so crisply  pressed to looked like origami.

She talked with me, and her four-room cottage sang with joie de vivre

And so my sense of self emerged,  its organdy presence unfolding and tentatively taking flight: the day we wore the hats to Keeneland, the floral gardening jacket, tea stained into antiquity at the kitchen sink. A disastrous black-tie dinner, bearable then and  in retrospect thanks to a photograph of what I wore: vintage black lace with butterfly sleeves, found in a box in Mom's attic..

Days brightened more with the next relocation A waving line of laundry  welcomed me from across the yard, and soon the laundress followed.  Barb appeared in my kitchen for coffee, sympathy, and instant bonding in the form of what she wore, what she sewed, and what she dared to hang on the line outdoors. Outlasting subsequent moves and marriages, Barb keeps the taupe silk we bought in Montmartre, shopkeeper muttering and fuming as he converted sixteen yards to meters. Like us,  it's undivided,  the bold yardage of life. 

Lately I’ve culled.  Out, out, damn spots, damned prints and animal skins. Out candy pinks, unruly reds. Out, trendy things, spied on a rainy day. But boots can stay until they fall apart. The black skirts stay, and all things taupe, the jeans that fit, ascending stack of black t-shirts. The bracelets, one for every day. And one last remnant of my hippie stage–I’m sorry, Dad-- I've kept my silver loops.

Mary Parker, long dead, still lingers in my wardrobe: a crisp white shirt, purchased for the feel of the fabric alone; a camel-tan coat found at the consignment shop.  Not my hue, but so perfectly detailed that I returned twice to look and finally brought it home. My Sadie-shoes, unwearable. Red leather clutch, Key West.

Some pieces should be discarded but I just don't have the heart. Others give me a nameless sense of security. One or two are gloriously impractical, and,  like the silk Barb keeps in storage, trail with me from house to house-- the fabric of our  halcyon days, our hearts. And what we wore.

Monday, January 18, 2010

The hot and the sour

This morning our house was power-washed by the most intense rainstorm of the season. First vertical, then horizontal, the downpour came at our sunspace windows with enough roar and force to send us running to see how much damage was being done. Everything was intact, and soon after the worst of the storm the skies cleared for a few minutes before storm two (of three in the forecast) came barreling in.

With a window of an hour at best, Ira and I layered up and charged down the front stairs to embark on day two of our hot and sour soup taste test competition.

Hot and sour soup is, in Asian homes, the catch-all for leftovers.  It's chicken soup with vinegar for sour and white pepper for hot.  Straw mushrooms and tofu are often added, along with soy sauce, tiger lily buds and thinly sliced pork.  Fresh cilantro and pineapple chunks are a bonus.  This combination is the perfect cure for the rainy season, a cold, or a generic case of the blues.

If the hot and sour soup in a Chinese restaurant is wonderful, it's a sure thing that the rest of the meal will be even better.  With that in mind we've made 2010 the Year of the Soup, a time to review all the eateries in our hood, and to answer the question once and for all:  where can perfection be found?

Melisa's (that's with one s) restaurant on Balboa has been named by friends as the best soup in the hood and we began our quest there last week.  We were underwhelmed.  Melisa's was charming, but the hot and sour we brought home was flat in color and low on ingredients.  What was there (tofu, sprouts, mushrooms) was fine but the broth was missing the luscious translucent red-brown color of soy sauce and hot chili sauce. The egg-drop component was a bit heavy for soup. Like scrambled eggs Kentucky-style.

Today's taste test at Tom Kiang on Geary was more successful.  We're getting organized and now we have a mental scorecard in place.  First, the visuals.  Tom Kiang's hot and sour was beautiful, a deep, transparent red-brown.  The aroma was perfect.  The taste test?  TK's soup was full of all the standard ingredients except pork slivers, which we didn't miss.  The broth was just the right consistency, not too much cornstarch.  But  hot overpowered sour by just a bit, adding up to a little white pepper overkill.

We didn't find perfection today, but Tom Kiang did give us a terrific floor show.  A Dim Sum restaurant, Tom Kiang specializes in small plates. (You might say Dim Sum is to Chinese as tapas is to Spanish.) So a big meal at Tom Kiang is made of many small appetizers.

We stuck to the plan of having hot and sour soup only, except for one digression--we couldn't resist a plate of four small dumplings stuffed with shrimp and greens.  Otherwise our eyes got the feast as waiters and waitresses tempted diners with  a non-stop parade of puffy brown pork rolls, glistening pot stickers with sauce,  stir-fried greens, shumai (steamed dumplings), and crispy tempura shrimp with beady black eyes and fins intact.

Next week we may try Golden Chopstick on Balboa, or one of the restaurants on Clement.  As rough as it is, our search must go on.  The perfect hot and sour is hiding out there somewhere, and we'll just have to find it.